Straits Times, Singapore, 10 May 2002

Hammer attack teen gets jail, cane

A 16-YEAR-OLD boy involved in a hammer attack on a 15-year-old student and his four friends at a bus stop in MacPherson was given 30 months' jail and six strokes of the cane yesterday.

Winston Lee Wei Zheng, then a Secondary 3 student at MacPherson Secondary School, admitted that he had been rioting with 15 others at the bus stop in front of a hawker centre in Circuit Road on Dec 15 last year.

He and his friends were part of a group which attacked the boy with a hammer and a 10 cm-long knife. The victim ended up in hospital for four days.

Two of Lee's accomplices, coffeeshop assistant Wu Jin Chang, 17, and hawker assistant Tan Guan Da, 18, were each sentenced to three years' jail and six strokes of the cane last month for rioting and being armed with deadly weapons.

Straits Times, Singapore, 10 May 2002

Gangster gets life for part in soccer player's murder

Judge hands out maximum penalty, with 16 strokes of the cane, for vicious, senseless attack on three 17-year-olds

By Elena ChongCourt Correspondent

TEARS rolled down the cheeks of a 22-year-old secret society member when told he would have to spend the rest of his life behind bars for helping to cause the death of a national youth soccer player a year ago.

Judicial Commissioner Tay Yong Kwang slapped the maximum penalty for culpable homicide, which includes 16 strokes of the cane, on Muhamad Hasik Sahar yesterday. [Picture, right, from Straits Times 23 September 2003]

Hasik had ganged up with seven others to attack Mr Sulaiman Hashim, a promising under-18 soccer team player, and two of his friends, along South Bridge Road on May 31 last year. All three were 17 then.

ACCUSED: Hasik (centre) faces a manslaughter charge. Two others, Fazely (left of picture, side view shown) and Famy (top, in black T-shirt) will be tried for Mr Sulaiman's murder.

[Picture and caption from Straits Times, 9 May 2002]

Muhamad Hasik's gang was hunting for rival gang members at Boat Quay that night, after a birthday celebration at a pub along Mohamad Sultan Road. They then spotted the Institute of Technical Education student and his two friends walking to City Hall MRT station.

After asking if the trio belonged to a gang, they attacked them, hacking Mr Sulaiman to death.

One of his friends, who tried to run, was stabbed in the back and punched in the head. The third escaped.

In passing sentence, the judge said the attackers did not seem interested in finding out whether the unfortunate trio were rival gang members.

'It seems to me that the predators were merely spoiling for some violent action, and the prey happened to be outnumbered by two to one. The horrendous acts that early morning were indiscriminate and senseless,' he said.

Streets and public places must be kept safe. Gang fights and running street battles had no place in a civilised society, he said.

Deputy public prosecutors Ng Cheng Thiam and Imran Abdul Hamid said that after chasing the other two victims, Muhamad Hasik and his two friends returned to kick and punch Mr Sulaiman in the face.

While Mr Sulaiman lay helplessly on the steps outside a pub, three knife-wielding gang members continued stabbing and slashing his head, throat and neck, inflicting 13 stab wounds in all.

The three men are believed to be in hiding in Malaysia.

The trial of two unemployed men - Fazely Rahmat, 21, and Khairul Famy Mohamad Samsudin, 20 - began yesterday in another court. They have been charged with murder.

Last November, two others involved in the case, Mohammad Fahmi Abdul Shukor, 19, and Mohammad Ridzwan Samad, 20, were each sentenced to three years' jail and six strokes of the cane, for abetting the gang members to riot.

Mr Lawrence Wong, who was assigned as Muhamad Hasik's defence counsel, argued that life imprisonment was not appropriate. The usual sentence for such a crime is 10 years' jail.

He said that Muhamad Hasik, who has four siblings, felt obligated to one of the gang members who had helped him out financially.

A gang member since early last year, he did not take part in any 'gang' activities other than joining them in drinking sessions at various nightspots.

However, the judge said Muhamad Hasik, who has a previous conviction for assault with a dangerous weapon, had clearly not learnt his lesson.

He added: 'Those who feel victorious in being vicious, and who have no qualms about the annual celebration of one's birth culminating in the untimely death of another, will have to spend all subsequent birthdays within prison walls until such time as they are eligible for parole.'

Straits Times, Singapore, 24 May 2002

Man joined teens to rob students

A 33-YEAR-OLD odd-job worker ganged up with teenagers to rob two students of their mobile phones and other items.

Because of his psychological makeup, Ng Peng Soon could not make friends of his own age, said his lawyer, Mr Shashi Nathan, who added that his client had been diagnosed with schizophrenia since 1985.

On Oct 30 last year, Ng, together with one of his accomplices, Ng Teck Meng, 16, plotted to steal some cell phones.

They contacted five girls and three boys, aged 12 to 16, and all 10 took the train to Eunos MRT station where they waylaid a 14-year-old student. They then took him to the 11th-floor lift landing of Block 320, Ubi Avenue 1.

There, eight of the accomplices acted as lookouts while Ng punched the victim on the back and chest. Teck Meng kicked the boy on his legs. They robbed him of $25, a TransitLink card and a Nokia phone.

Ng, together with five other teens, similarly robbed a 13-year-old student of his $100 Nokia phone at a lift landing in Block 792, Woodlands Avenue 6, on Nov 5 last year.

On Wednesday, Ng was sentenced to a total of 10 years' jail and 24 strokes of the cane after pleading guilty to two counts of robbery with hurt. Another two charges were considered during the sentencing.

Teck Meng has been sentenced to the Reformative Training Centre, while the other teens have all been placed on probation.

Straits Times, Singapore, 25 May 2002

Mum helped lover rape her little girl

THE girl was only nine when her mother's boyfriend started raping her.

Her mother ordered the child to submit to him, watched and even took part in some of the sexual abuse in her Tampines home.

The abuse went on almost daily for five years.

Yesterday, the mother, 35, who cannot be named to protect the girl's identity, was sentenced to 36 years in jail.

Her boyfriend, Peh Thian Hui, 48, a married man with two daughters and a son, was also slapped with a 36-year jail term and ordered to be caned 24 times.

The sentences were among the harshest meted out in recent times in a trial that was unprecedented: A mother who helped in the sexual assaults on her daughter, and even abused her sexually.

She was spared the cane because women are not caned.

In sentencing, Judicial Commissioner Tay Yong Kwang rebuked the couple, condemning the woman as the 'very antithesis of a mother' and Peh for attacking a child who had not even reached puberty.

The judge said: 'The rape of the child occurred with revolting regularity in the very sanctuary called home, sanctioned by the very person whose maternal instincts should be to protect the victim.

'It is an incomprehensible atrocity that a mother would order her little nine-year-old girl to submit to her then 42-year-old lover in this sordid fashion, all in the name of her love for the abuser.'

The court heard that the woman was estranged from her husband when she became Peh's lover in 1990.

That was after they started working together as housing agents, operating out of the woman's three-room flat.

In September 1996, Peh said he wanted to touch the girl, and the mother let him molest the child.

Then he said he wanted to have sex with the nine-year-old and the woman, who claimed to be in love with him, agreed.

She called the little girl into the bedroom and ordered her to submit to Peh. When the child refused, the mother scolded her, using Hokkien vulgarities, and said: 'All women will like such activities.' The sexual abuse became an almost-daily occurrence, stopping only on Sundays and public holidays when the girl's father dropped by to see her and her two older brothers.

It went on for years.

When the girl was 13, Peh raped her in the back of his van at a Pasir Ris Park carpark while her mother kept a lookout outside.

At least twice, he made the girl take part in sexual activities with her mother, said prosecutors Ravneet Kaur and Francis Ng.

The rapes left the girl with a sexually-transmitted infection.

The girl did not tell anyone until last October, when her mother started divorce proceedings and sought custody of her three children.

The girl, now 14, was unwilling to remain with her mother and finally broke her silence, confiding in a couple she had befriended.

They persuaded her to go to the police, and the two abusers were arrested on Nov 8.

Peh, who was expressionless in court, faced a total of 62 charges and pleaded guilty to 10, including five for rape.

Crying in the dock, the mother faced 60 charges and pleaded guilty to seven - five for helping her lover rape her child, one for molest and another for having obscene VCDs.

Peh's lawyer, Mr Kertar Singh, pleaded for leniency, saying that his client had 'lost his sense of morality' because he was sexually abused as a child and exposed to pornography constantly.

Lawyer Peter Yap, for the mother, said that her life was 'tragic and doomed from the very start' as she, too, had been sexually abused and 'unloved' in her marriage.

The prosecutors called on the court to punish the mother as severely as Peh, because she had betrayed 'the inherent trust that is so naturally placed on the mother as the nurturer and protector of her children'.

Straits Times, Singapore, 31 May 2002

Police release photo of jailed rapist

POLICE have released the photograph of the man who was convicted last week for raping his lover's young daughter over a period of four years.

Peh Thian Hui, 48, faced 62 charges, including 54 of rape. He was sentenced to 36 years' jail and 24 strokes of the cane last week. He preyed on his girlfriend's daughter for four years.

Peh Thian Hui, a 48-year-old father of three, was jailed for 36 years by the High Court and ordered to be given 24 strokes of the cane.

His lover, a 35-year-old woman, was also sentenced to 36 years' jail for helping him to rape her own daughter and for abusing her sexually.

The sentences were among the harshest meted out in recent times.

The woman cannot be named to protect the identity of the girl, who is now 14.

During the trial, the deputy public prosecutor had asked the court to withhold Peh's particulars too, but Judicial Commissioner Tay Yong Kwang said it was not necessary because Peh was not related to the girl.

The woman was estranged from her husband when she became Peh's lover in 1990, after they started working together as housing agents, operating out of the woman's three-room flat.

Peh started abusing the girl when she was nine and did it almost every day.

The victim reported the abuse last October after her mother started divorce proceedings and sought custody of her and her two siblings.